#well war this time
Age-swapping Menelaos and Paris is like putting a wounded lamb in front of two hungry lions.
Complete fucking bloodbath. :D
So have a quick rundown of how this AU could work:
The Judgement happens earlier, but in comparison to regular canon Aphrodite isn’t offering up someone else’s wife. Paris is the lone non-Achaean attending Helen’s courtship.
Makes an impression on young teens Menelaos as much as Helen has as he’s been growing into puberty /cough
The oath is taken as normal, Helen and Paris marry, they go off to Troy. Couple years later the whole “curse of sterility + epidemic” happens, Menelaos goes with Kastor and Pollux to Troy, gets put in the metaphorical lion’s den.
He stays in Troy (it’s not like his brother need-needs him! and he was trying to both pay back Sparta for how they hosted him and Agamemnon, plus trying to show his brother he is Competent and growing up lol), undoubtedly amid increasingly exasperated messages from Agamemnon to come the fuck home.
Couple years later, Achilles now old enough to actually Do Shit and with no outside reason for a war in Troy but still his split destiny, Hera and Athena have their opening to (attempt to) get revenge. Because, after all, why should the most beautiful woman in the world, an Achaean woman, be married to someone who isn’t Achaean? And even if Achilles wasn’t old enough back then, now that he’s old enough to marry, if anyone, shouldn’t Helen be married to him?
It’s not so hard for the goddesses to spread this sentiment throughout the royal houses of the islands and mainland, even if this isn’t how the oath should be weaponized, it’s how it gets used.
(I feel like Agamemnon is by now sure there’s sorcery or something involved in keeping his poor, naive, deluded little brother in Troy. He Must Be Rescued.)
Enter war.
Now, you can either go more canon-ish and have the usual end, or have a Troy wins AU (I’d lean towards the latter lol). Menelaos spends ten years trying to avoid fighting his brother and worrying about him staying safe, but he’s not going to leave his lovers. :v
